Godric's Hollow
by Alaska Steele
Summary: The last night before the Golden Trio's lives become havoc with the search for Voldemort's Horcruxes, they visit Godric's Hollow, where each reflects on their past, present, and future. Completed.
1. Hermione

Godric's Hollow

**Hermione **

* * *

I brace my back against a sturdy tree and look out on the soft hush of twilight; the fiery sun has gone down, and night has all but fallen. In the distance, I can just see Harry's silhouette. He is very still, staring out at a distant horizon, unmoving. I'm not sure if he is thinking, or if, maybe, he is just waiting. All I know is that even in his rigid silhouette, I can see the pain that is filling him. I pray that there is some small spark of hope underneath his pain, though – pray that he will find strength in this visit, pray that he will draw power from his parents' graves.

Suddenly, tears well in my eyes as I realize the extent of his loss: his parents, when he was a mere year old, then his godfather, and now Albus Dumbledore. "Dumbledore," I whisper aloud, brushing away a single tear that has streaked down my cheek. I know that, to Harry, this may be the deepest loss of all, the wound that recquires the most nursing to heal. It may never heal, I realize. It truly may never heal.

All because of Voldemort.

Rage rises up inside me, and I beat it down. Voldemort, who has hurt all of us so much, never bats an eyelash, never cares about the damage he's doing. Of course, Harry has explained it all to Ron and I, how the man is not actually a man anymore, how he's divided his soul by killing, and killing, and killing again, over and over until he was in pieces. Harry has told us, although it is hard to describe, how swiftly Tom Riddle, the handsome teenager, turned to something that was no longer a man, no longer recognizable by his good looks. I remember what Ginny told me, about Tom Riddle's diary, and about him, after that night when he almost killed her; _"He was handsome, you know," she said, shaking her head, her red hair drifting like sand dunes over her shoulders. "But you could just tell he was heartless. It was in his eyes."_

I know it's true, that Voldemort cannot be saved. After all, wasn't he the only one that Dumbledore ever gave up on?

I sense movement off to my right, and turn to see Ron's form leaning against a tree a few yards away, looking at his best friend with the struggle of pain on his face, the struggle of fear a mere shadow in his warm brown eyes that have suddenly turned so solemn. I know that he is thinking about his family, and the near-deaths that they have all suffered at the hand of Voldemort; I know he is worrying about his mother, who is undoubtedly still carrying around her clock, where Ron's hand will certainly be quivering at "Mortal Peril" with a bit more intensity than the rest; I know that he is pondering what he can possibly do or say to cheer Harry up again.

As I look back at Harry's silhouette, his head bows, and on a drift of cool, autumn wind, I catch the whispered phrase, "Dad…Prongs." My eyes fill with tears again as I hear his voice murmur, "Sirius…" His hand restlessly gropes for something to do, and finds a small pile of leaves; he picks them up, and they scurry away on the wind, precious few fluttering down to rest beside him again. "Dumbledore…"

Finally, I can contain the tears no longer. They spill, unbidden, over my cheeks, and I make no move to delay them as they drop softly to the ground, their water not enough to revive the red, golden, dead leaves that cover the soil of autumn.


	2. Ron

Godric's Hollow

**Ron **

* * *

I can't bear to sit down, as Hermione is; I know that if I try to be still, I will explode, I will yell, and I will be more angry, more hurt, than I already am. That's what I expected from Harry, a few months ago, after Dumbledore died. I expected him to sulk, to rage, just like he did after Sirius's death. Somewhere along the line, though, he changed.

He didn't tell us much about finding that fake Horcrux, I realize now, as I stare at his silhouette, outlined against the rage of color on a horizon that has just swallowed the sun. The outlines, the basics, yes, but he didn't tell us everything; I can tell. He's become so quiet, so withdrawn; my jokes can't reach him, not anymore. Hermione can't help him, either. He won't rest, she says, until he's killed Voldemort. _It would help, _I think sardonically, _if the man was **mortal**._

_That _is what we're helping him for, Hermione's brisk voice says in my mind, the one that's all businesslike even though I know that she's hurting, perhaps more deeply than I am. Most _definitely _deeper than I am. Goddamn it, but that bookworm can hurt, even though she thinks that no one ever sees. She can't hide anything from me, even though she thinks she can, even though she thinks that I'm an insensitive wart.

The bark of the tree is rough against my back through my cloak, and I grimace as I realize that I am possibly going to be sleeping on much rougher ground than this in the year to come. Suddenly I hope, viciously, that Voldemort will feel all of our pain when he dies, that Voldemort will have to go through every agony that every person he's ever tortured or that his followers have ever tortured has felt. I hope, even more viciously, that Voldemort will feel every terrible pain that he has inflicted on my best friends, and on Harry.

I know, though, that Voldemort can never feel that pain, for he is no longer man, and only man can feel the extent of hurt that we have all been through.

"May he then always know pain in his most terrible Hell," I whisper viciously, shifting slightly against the tree so that I can turn to look at Hermione again, knowing that she is thinking of a million things and that she is hurting. My heart goes out to her, and I want nothing more than to help her through it, to help her heal and cope. However I can help, I wish to. I've never really felt that before except for with her. No matter how many rows we've gotten into, no matter how many rocky times our friendship has seen, I have always wanted to help her forever, and only her. That was what I never felt with Lavender; we had the snogging part down pat, but I could never feel for her the way I feel for Hermione.

I hear a barely audible sniff, almost carried away on the wind, and my heart throbs. Finally, I know, my moment has come to help her. With a last glance at my best friend, his head now bowed and his whisper of, "Dumbledore…" carrying toward me on the wind, I turn away from the tree I've been resting on and softly approach Hermione, who is now crying freely, her tears dancing in the moonlight over the leaves of autumn.

I sit down next to her, but she doesn't look up, only curling into herself, her arms around her legs and her forehead against her knees, her small frame shaking with soft sobs. She probably doesn't even know I'm there, not with the blinding pain that I know is drenching her. Finally, I reach out and touch her shoulder, but my hand doesn't stop there; I let it creep along until my arm is wrapped firmly around her, and I pull her against me. Although she is still sobbing, her body relaxes, and she buries her face in my shoulder as I wrap my other arm around her, stroking her hair. I feel her arms around me, too, and I feel tears of my own slipping down my face and into her tangle of hair, blown gently by a cool, indifferent autumn wind.

No word passes between us, but as we cry in one another's arms, I feel warmth light in my soul once again at long last, and finally I can whisper the words that I have been longing to say for years now: "I love you, Hermione."

The smile on her weakened-with-pain features is enough to sustain me for eternity when she tips her face up towards mine and says through her tears, "I love you too, Ron."


	3. Harry

Godric's Hollow

**Harry **

* * *

The sun is setting. I watch with an empty indifference as the coming night leeches the warmth from the air, the cold wind stirring the leaves in a death rattle around my mother and father's headstones. The lettering isn't as crisp as it must once have been, but it is not entirely indecipherable yet. I trace my father's name with my fingers, thinking of the man I never knew. _Prongs._ The letters of his nickname are spelled out at the very bottom of the tombstone, along with the inscription "_The Fearless Marauder._" I wonder if it was Lupin or Sirius who thought to put that there. Perhaps I'll never know, just like I never knew my father.

Thanks to Voldemort, once again.

I feel my fist clench, and I don't even have to look down to know that the scars spelling, _I will not tell lies_, are gleaming even whiter tonight against the impending dark. My fist clenches harder, and I feel the tears start welling in my eyes again; I bow my head, brace my forehead against my knees, and wait for the spell to pass, trying to gather strength from my father's grave, but I know that he is not here; he is with my mother, and they are waiting for the day when I will be with them again. "Dad," I mutter, turning over the crisp soil with my fingers. "Mum…"

Stars are starting to twinkle to life in the blackness of the sky above, and almost all of the golden glow has faded from the horizon, being steadily overcome by the night. Despite myself, I shiver slightly. For autumn, it's very cold; Dad's headstone is even colder behind my back. In the near distance, I see Hermione curled against a tree, wrapping her arms around herself to keep out the cold, and I know that she is worrying more than ever about me, and about Ron, and about all of us. It's hard to imagine, really, that it was a full six years ago, and she was the bushy-haired know-it-all who Ron and I saved from a troll blundering around in the dungeons. Somehow, that time seemed like a week ago, her petrification by Slytherin's monster a day later, the shrill tone in her voice as she exposed Lupin as a werewolf that night in the shrieking shack perhaps twenty-four hours following, the triumph on her face after the capture of Rita Skeeter a day after that, the fight at the Ministry perhaps another day later, the shock on her face after learning of the death of Dumbledore only today.

Ron is looking at her now, his face lined with concern for her. I have to smile slightly. Who would have ever thought that Ron Weasley, the boy who could play chess like a pro in first year, who drove his father's flying car into the Whomping Willow, who owned the rat Scabbers that turned out to be Peter Pettigrew, who could not help but hate me when I was unceremoniously shoved into the Triwizard Tournament, who fought at my side in the Department of Mysteries and was attacked by a brain, would have been snogging Lavender Brown in public by sixth year?

So many things have happened to us all, and I know that something else is about to happen when Ron rouses himself from his tree, sits down next to Hermione, and wraps his arms around her. I turn my head away, watching the now blank horizon, and whisper, "Sirius." I twirl the dirt and the leaves with restless fingers again, itching to get going and yet itching to stay put. Once we start out, I know that there is no turning back, as we should have realized first year, going after the Sorcerer's Stone. I wonder if we would have embarked on the journey, then, if we had known.

Well, we are all Gryffindors, after all. Maybe we would have.

I grip a small pile of leaves and let them fall again. "Dumbledore," I say, softly, stirring the leaves now with trembling fingers. I cannot get the final image of him out of my mind's eye, lying spread-eagled beneath the tower above which the Dark Mark gleamed; I cannot bear the thought that he died needlessly, that he weakened himself for a Horcrux that turned out to be quite fake. Had he known, before he died, that he had died for nothing?

I can't bear that thought. I press my forehead to my knees again and let the tears come, feeling my shoulders shake as they flow out, soaking my skin. The tombstone is hard and bitter behind me, and night has fully fallen, the wind rustling the trees and leaves threateningly. I don't want to look back, but it is just as miserable to look forward.

Just a few minutes later, I hear a pair of footsteps. I take off my glasses, wipe them on my cloak, and put them back on, getting to my feet to greet my two friends, both of whom were looking as grim and determined as they ever have, but Ron's arm is around Hermione's waist, and there is a new hope gleaming in both of their eyes. Even through all my pain, I smile at them, nod to Ron, and say, "About time, mate."

He grins, almost sheepishly, and Hermione blushes, but they both move forward at the same time and for a moment, we are all in one embrace, our circle of friendship tighter than it has ever been. After a moment, we all step back. Neither of them say a word. We're all waiting, I know, and just as it was in first year, it's my move first.

With a single motion, I take out my wand, glance one last time at my parents' graves, and brandish my wand toward the distant horizon. "_Lumos_," I whisper, and the small flare of light pushes back the dark as Ron, Hermione, and I embark on our hardest journey of all.


End file.
